• Registered: 2009-03-02
  • Posts: 80

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

I would be VERY careful attempting to solder anything on your computer's mobo.  You MUST HAVE a calibrated iron set to a specific temperature with a VERY fine tip.  Something like a Metcal iron would be easiest since there are a variety of tips that all come pre-calibrated and I have never seen that iron burn anything.  Also, you will want to use a good ROHS "no-clean" solder or even better "water wash" solder (this means that after you solder you have to wash all of the flux off.)  This is the best most professional way to solder, because it removes all of the flux from the pcb, which can degrade the pcb, especially in hi-temp situations. 

Remove the battery (both the main battery and the watch battery) AND WAIT 45 MIN.  Then, solder your header back on to the board.  Wash the area with a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol followed by a q-tip with some DISTILLED water.  Let air dry for 2 hours, or dry with hairdryer from a distance and let sit 30 min. 

Most computer mobos are many layer pcbs and use surface mount components.  If this component is surface mount, you are probably out of luck.  Plus, the board is pretty thin and will heat up quickly, making it easy to damage other components and even the board itself.

If it is really broken and not just a misunderstanding of how the connector works, I would highly recommend taking it to an apple authorized repair center.  If it has applecare, just put it back together, take it in and tell them it's broken.  They will quickly find the problem and should repair that sort of thing for free. 

Don't let on that you were messing around in there, but unless you were using a screwdriver to remove the fan connector from the mobo, components coming unsoldered under regular use (the connector should always release before being ripped off the pcb) screams manufacturing flaw, and I suspect that any tech would see that component hanging off and say, "damn, that just came right off"

Whatever you do, be very, very careful,
Brian

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

I don't know about laptops' mainboards, but I did some soldering of capacitors on several desktop mainboard (anyone remember those faulty caps that lose their fluids?). I could hold the soldering iron on the board for hours without the MB material even starting to burn away.  And that was a quite rough iron of the cheap sort, not the special low-wattage ones with the fine tips. cool

  • Registered: 2009-03-02
  • Posts: 80

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

Sure, but those are power caps with wide traces and large (relatively) gauge leads.  The component he is referring to is for one on a laptop which downsizes everything considerably, and two is a very low power device which means tiny wires, and traces that will much more easily lift away from the pcb.  Think about it, the tiny macbook mobo has all of the same major components, like north/south bridge, cpu, gpu etc. as a desktop mobo.  The parts are all smaller... I mean the whole mobo is only like 10"x5" and that includes space for the gpu, bluetooth, and wifi.

154 Reply by hoswa

  • hoswa
  • ADAT user
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-07-03
  • Posts: 8

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

I gave my macbook in repair and the technician changed the fan. after this procedure the beep error didn't occur anymore. So the cooling therory seems to be correct. But I can't test the fireface 400 for longer, because i changed it to a brand new fireface uc (which also works perfectly with my macbook).

  • From: Portugal - Lisbon
  • Registered: 2007-05-01
  • Posts: 151

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

i changed it to a brand new fireface uc

Splitters!

lol

Fireface 400 + DIGI96/8 PAD. It's old but works.

undercode's Website

  • Registered: 2008-03-13
  • Posts: 6

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

mocker: Your suggestion of cleaning the MacBook fan seems to be the solution for me. I too have been experiencing the infernal BEEEEP sound when running Logic Pro + Reason with lots of plugins (and other CPU-intensive tasks). My brother-in-law cleaned the fan for me, and took out a piece of dust (you know, like the solid ones that live under your bed) that was almost half the size of my little finger! This happened about a month ago, and I have not experienced this awful noise again. This must be a heat issue as you pointed out.

My brother-in-law had never heard of this problem (he's an Apple certified technician), and was kind of glad to have learned something new. He suggested that there might be some kind of fail-safe mechanism that prevents the MacBook from being damaged that produced the sound.

So far, I'm really happy. My FF400 was not the problem, my 3 year-old MacBook is functioning splendidly, and luckily this BEEEP never happened during a live gig smile The latter was probably due to me just running Reason and nothing more when playing live, i.e. the CPU strain was very little.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge on this forum!

PS: Will report back if the beep from hell returns smile

157 Reply by mocker (edited by mocker 2010-06-29 10:58:35)

  • Registered: 2009-06-06
  • Posts: 47

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

Thanks, as I said before, I found the solution on some forum where heavy game players were having problems with Warcraft or something (not my cup of tea).

But, anyway, I must say that after one year without the beep, it started again a few days ago while watching a flash video on YouTube. And using a heavy Final Cut Project, too. Sigh? Does it mean I'm gonna have to clean its inside again ? I'm afraid I will.

All this leads me to one conclusion : the white (or black) MacBook is a nice little machine, but definitely not totally reliable for pro use. And this fan noise drives me CRAZY. I guess it's time to move on and get a faster - desktop - machine.

  • Registered: 2009-06-06
  • Posts: 47

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

mocker wrote:

All this leads me to one conclusion : the white (or black) MacBook is a nice little machine, but definitely not totally reliable for pro use. And this fan noise drives me CRAZY. I guess it's time to move on and get a faster - desktop - machine.

What I just did? Switched to a brand new 27' i5 iMac. Silence and happiness.

  • Registered: 2008-04-23
  • Posts: 15

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

I've got the dreaded beep disease on my macbook pro with upgraded internal drive (7200 rpm). I'll try the fan cleaning and report back.

160 Reply by bounce (edited by bounce 2010-08-07 02:45:59)

  • Registered: 2008-04-23
  • Posts: 15

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

bounce wrote:

I've got the dreaded beep disease on my macbook pro with upgraded internal drive (7200 rpm). I'll try the fan cleaning and report back.

Dropped $79 on a pro cleaning of the fans and whatnot. Worked great for 2 rehearsals but now the beeeeep disease is back. Ableton doesn't die. I can even take out the firewire cable to the ff400, put it back in and reselect the ff400 in Live prefs and it works again fine. So bummed. Any new ideas anyone?

Airport is off. Macbook pro 17" duo 2.4 4gb ram os 10.5.8
adapter power on ff400
cable is 800 to 400 firewire

7200 rpm internal seagate drive

TI firewire chipset

  • Registered: 2008-04-23
  • Posts: 15

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

Any chance an RME rep may have some useful tips for us? That would be excellent before I go buying pcmcia firewire cards, repeaters, etc.

  • Registered: 2008-04-23
  • Posts: 15

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

RME, any thoughts? Thanks.

I'm on the current firmware.

  • Registered: 2008-04-23
  • Posts: 15

Re: FF 400 goes into "loop" (endless beep sound)

Hmm, there's hope. I did several things yesterday. I opened the Monitor app in utilities and there was a repeating log message saying that a Digidesign firewire driver (from an old 002 install) was repeatedly trying to access firewire but kept failing. I used the Digidesign uninstaller and cleared that from the system. I also updated the RME driver to the newest one released last month. Mine was the version before that. I also ditched the firewire 800 to 400 cable I was using for a 400 to 400. I was able to loop playback on about 12 tracks of 4 minutes of audio for over an hour with no glitch. I'll post here if this issue returns (fingers crossed!).